Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/23

 possessing the quality of splitting straight and freely in greater perfection than any other member of the family known in the Port Phillip district, is peculiarly valuable to the settler, who thus obtains his slabs (rough planks) for building, and his posts and rails for fencing, without the trouble and expense of sawing.

Next in importance to the soil of a country is its command of water. And here I am bound to say that, though not absolutely niggard, nature has not been so bountiful as in her gifts of soil and climate. There are in the Port Phillip district, but few rivers which flow all through the year, of which the Murray, with its tributaries, and the Yarra, are the principal. There are others which flow for eight or nine months in each year, and whose beds, even in the dry seasons, contain many deep lagoons. There are many other similar lagoons (or waterholes as they are called) in creeks, which are filled occasionally by a heavy fall of rain, and retain water for two or three years without any fresh supply. Besides this, the settlers every now and then discover springs; but with all these sources the country cannot be said to be at present plentifully watered, though were its inhabitants placed in a position to use artificial means, such as sinking wells and building tanks, (for the latter of which the undulations of the ground and the abundance of rain afford great facilities,) I have no doubt that on this head there would be no room for complaint. But, until the stockholders are given some interest in the land, it cannot be expected that any improvement of this kind can be made. This absence of permanent water-courses, though far from a desirable